It's interesting you say this, because i've been thinking a lot about Nietzsche's slave vs. master morality, and i feel like we as a culture have to a large extent come to adopt something resembling the former. If this is true - and there are a lot of assumptions baked into this, so take it with a pinch of salt - then it stands to reason that we as a culture are inundated with shame, since the standards of a slave morality are so much higher and more proscriptive than those of a master morality. Master moralities tell you what to pursue and be; slave moralities tell you what not to do. So, yeah, in sum, if all of this is true, then it's no surprise that society at large is struggling a bit with motivation, since the slave morality is essentially etiolating everything.
When i was younger, i had intense bouts of what psychologists call intrinsic motivation.
As i get older, this happens less and less – which is a massive shame.
I wanted to understand whether there was any good evidence as to what intrinsic motivation is and how i might be able to cultivate it in my adult life. To do this, i did a massive deep dive of the scientific literature surrounding intrinsic motivation. This is the outcome of that research.
Something I have been thinking about and experimenting with is the hypothesis that as I age, my neuronal mitochondria are simply producing less ATP per hour than they used to. Great health and sleep are the expected fixes, but I’m also now supplementing with enzymes and substrates for each phase of the Krebs Cycle, treating mito function like an Internal Combusikb Engine and my biochemical attempts like a Mech Engineer optimizing horsepower and efficiency.
Anecdotally (because I’m not going to syringe my brain) I am feeling a lot more enduring wakefulness and motivation than when I skip them in my morning routine.
I did a chatGPT dive to validate this but that’s not exactly a biochemical lit review.
There is risk in this approach. Nobody has any real idea what supplements are doing in all of the bodily tissues, and sometimes the effects are not benign. "Folate acceleration" of cancer is just one such cautionary tale. Vitamin E and heart failure is another, though I'm not sure how that one ultimately settled out.
There is a wide list of other maneuvers to try first.
- Time in bed does not equate to "great sleep." Make sure you don't have sleep apnea. Practice good sleep hygiene.
- Delivery of oxygen to your brain is just as important as mitochondrial aging, if not more. Get some aerobic exercise (even walking is fine) -- it wakes me up and maybe will do the same for you. Heed your vascular risk factors, because crap in your cerebral vessels will not help.
- The one supplement exception is vitamin B12, which neurons must have. Deficiency can be very hard to judge by symptoms, so I'd get it measured and act accordingly.
I would say daily high level cardio for at least half an hour and optimal sleep is important for good mitochondrial function. nootropics are a big subject, but some omega 3 and other lipid type supplements would be important for brain function, and I would think electrolyte balance would be important, all the electrolytes, not just sodium and potassium.
Intrinsic motivation is linked to greater wellbeing, greater creativity, greater task persistence, and greater learning.
As far as i'm concerned, the more intrinsically motivated we are in our daily lives, all things being equal, the better those lives are likely to be.
As it turns out, the science on Intrinsic Motivation is far more mature than most people realise. Thousands of studies. Tens of millions of citations. Etc.
I spent a couple months with my head in this literature. Here's a review of everything that i found.
